Page 124 of Feral King

Alex has reached Lyra.

He must’ve moved when my attention was on Sophia, while Yang and his men were finishing off Lee’s guards.

He’s behind her. He’s pulled her up to a standing position, his hand fisted in her hair, her head pulled back at an angle that exposes her throat. The other hand holds a gun pressed against her temple.

The man I’m looking at isn’t my brother anymore.

Whatever was left of Alexander Volkov, the boy fishing on the deck in upstate New York, is gone. The man looking at me now is desperate and out of options. His eyes are wild, his pupils blown. There’s blood on his shirt, though I can’t tell whether it’s his or not.

“Drop it, brother,” he says, his voice cracking, the adrenaline ripping through whatever humanity he has left. “Drop the gun. Drop it right now, or I’ll put one through her head. I swear to God I will.”

I don’t drop the gun. I don’t move at all. Every muscle in my body is still.

Alex is panicked, wild.

But I’m pure focus.

If this has to end with a bullet in my brother, so be it.

“Alexander.” My voice is low and calm.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see my men, as well as Yang’s, form up around us. One word from me and Alex would be filled with lead. But the risk of harming Lyra is too severe. There’s not a chance in hell I’m taking that risk.

Lyra’s body is tense against him. Her expression is one of defiance, but I can see the panic in her eyes. I can see her body shaking with fear. Seeing her like that… I want to tear my brother’s throat out with my bare hands.

“Drop it!” he yells.

“Alexander, listen to me.”

“There’s nothing to listen to!” He twists her hair and jerks her head back further. Lyra gasps slightly but knows better than to react.

He presses the pistol harder against her temple. I can see her swallow, see her pulse pounding.

“Alex, brother, I’m going to put this in as plainly as I can. There’s nowhere to go. There are a dozen men here. Lee is dead. Dobrov is dead. You planned, you executed, but it failed. It’s over. And right now, there is no version of this where you walk out of here unless you put down the gun. Now.”

“I don’t give a damn. I don’t care about walking out. I don’t care about the council or the company or any of that bullshit. Right now, all I care about is taking everything fromyou, the way you took everything fromme. I’m going to show you that for all your hard work, you couldn’t keep the one thing safe that you cared about most of all.”

I take a slow breath.

“Alex—”

He lets out a snort of a laugh.

“What do you think Dad would say? Your job was to protect me, wasn’t it? But right now, your little brother has a gun to your woman’s head, and it’s all your fault.”

Even now, he’s blaming me. But I put that aside. Nothing matters but getting Lyra out of his hateful clutches.

I look at her. She’s using every ounce of strength she has to keep it together.

And then I look at Alex.

“Drop the gun,” I tell him again, more firmly this time. “There’s no reason anyone else has to die today. You’re my brother, Alex. Drop the gun and we can sit down, talk about what’s next. But right now, you need to move that gun away from her.”

He shakes his head.

“No. I can’t.”

One shot. I could put a round between his eyes and end it all, with my brother dead on the warehouse floor.